


Mystrery Pets

by MidnightCreator



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, Mystery Pets AU, can this be an AU?, i think, many animals, there are animals, this would be a fun AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 08:19:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7427197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidnightCreator/pseuds/MidnightCreator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stanley Pines has gained quite a following in the thirty years his lived in Gravity Falls, Oregon. Not the most ‘normal’ following but it is Gravity Falls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mystrery Pets

It started when Stanley had gone out for groceries.  
It had been almost a month since the…accident, and Stan’ford’ Pines had his Murder Hut in full swing and a decent income every day.  
He’d actually paid for his food on this trip…well most of it and was loading everything into the back of his Stanley Mobile.  
And then a cat had started to rub on his leg, meowing up a pitiful storm.  
Stan had seen plenty of strays in his time. Stray cats and dogs were normality just about everywhere.  
He hadn’t been able to do much for strays in the past, other then give them a petting and talk to them a bit. But now he had no qualms about pulling out some cheese and handing it over to the blue-gray feline.   
He left the parking lot after the cat meowed a thanks and dashed off with its treat.  
The next time Stan went into town, the gray-blue cat would follow him around, and when he got food the she cat got food too.  
Then an orange tabby joined the blue-gray, and Stan, being the softy he would deny he was, started to feed that newcomer as well.  
As more cats appeared, Stan started to name them.  
The blue-gray cat he called Freeloader, orange tabby was christened Tag-Along, a long furred black cat was named Shadow. Two young tortoiseshells received the names Tig and Gir, they came together, might as well give them names that could go together. And a kitten he named Two-Face, who had half of her face in a ginger color and the other half was inky black.  
People came to know the little group that would follow their Mr. Mystery around and the sight of Stan Pines walking out of a store and instantly being surrounded by cats became just another oddity of the town that everyone accepted as normality.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Stan really should have known that once he had a clowder of cats following him home that a dog would be the next thing.  
He’d first seen the saggy mess of fur when he went to give the cats their morning meal.  
The dog was at the edge of the forest, looking as if he wanted to come over and have a bite but wary to take his chances.  
Stan made a decision for the canine by bring it ham.  
The dog had woofed the food down and licked Stan’s hand. The dapple looking blue and gray markings over white fur had earned the name Cookies’n’Cream for the dog, CC for short, and he started come with the cats, following at Stan’s heels.  
CC was the first and largest, after him was a smaller female named Sandy, not only because of her coat color but also the fact she seemed to store sand and dirt in her fur. Then came Stormy, guy had just shown up during a thunderstorm, and Foxy, another female with the reddest fur Stan had ever seen on a dog.  
The dogs also became a norm around the Shack and town, everyone knew each dog and the dogs knew everyone.  
Just another odd normality in Gravity Falls, Oregon.

-*-*-*-*-*-

Stan had noticed Foxy had been gaining weight for awhile now, and he was honestly puzzled.   
He fed her the same as the others and yet her belly seemed to grow more swollen every week.  
And CC seemed to be much more protective over Foxy since the sudden weight gain, barking and just about everyone who tried to pet her. Stan was the only human allowed around her and the little group of cats and dogs were the only other creature allowed close.  
It was all very weird to Stan. And he lived in Gravity Falls!  
He had started to consider taking Foxy to a vet until a tourist asked how far along his dog was.  
Apparently, the young man was in training to be a Vet and had come to Oregon for a vacation with a few friends. The man recognized the signs of a pregnant dog the minute he saw how big Foxy was and how protective CC behaved.  
He left assuring Stan that the dogs would handle it on their own as long as he provided the same care he had been giving and someplace for Foxy to lie down and take care of her newborns when the time came.  
Stan cleared out the closet closest to his bedroom and set up a good sized box with clean towels inside and bowls for food and water.  
Foxy seemed to know what the spot was for the minute Stan showed it to her and she made herself comfortable.  
That was the day Stan started letting the animals inside.  
Up until that point, they all had been more then happy to hang out on the porch. Now that Stan was letting Foxy and CC inside, everyone else somehow found there way into the Shack and ventured in and out as they pleased.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Four weeks after Foxy moved into the closet, Stan was awakened by CC pawing at his arm.  
Stan got up grumbling and growling and CC, asking what on earth the dumb mutt wanted at three in the morning.  
His groaning was cut short when he saw where CC was leading him.  
Foxy lay in her box, looking completely exhausted and every bit a proud mother, three little pups nestled into her stomach.  
The biggest pup looked like his dad, so he was dubbed CC the second. The middle pup looked more like his mom but not nearly as red so Stan settled on Rusty. The youngest and the only girl seemed to be and odd combination of mom and dad, reddish fur with the dapple gray markings that reminded Stan a bit of a red version of marble, so she was named Marble.  
The pups were welcomed easily by the other dogs and the cats and adored Stan every bit as much as their parents.

-*-*-*-*-*-

A part of Stan knew it would happen some day, but it didn’t make things less painful.  
Freeloader had died.   
She had gone peacefully, in her sleep, curled up on Stan’s armchair.  
The man had tried to shoo her off the chair in the morning and when she didn’t move he’d picked her up.  
His heart had skipped a beat at how cold the cat felt against his hand, how she dangled limply in his grasp and it hadn’t taken him more then a minute to piece things together.  
He buried the blue-gray she-cat a small ways behind the Shack, marking the grave with a stone.  
The other animals stopped by, one at a time with the exception of the twins, and Two-Face, who had grown into a beautiful she-cat, dropped a blue wildflower on top of the rock.  
When word got out that one of the Mystery Shack animals had passed away, they gave their condolences to Stan who brushed it all off with a light ‘she had a long life, about time Freeloader moved on’  
But what really stung the thirty two year old man was, not the fact his beloved cat had died, rather it was the fact that it was Freeloader who went first.  
She had been the first to come to him, the first to follow him, the first to venture all the way to the Mystery Shack and meow for food, even the first to start climbing into bed with him. The only thing she didn’t get to be first for was getting to come inside the Shack, that honor belonged to Foxy.  
And now she was the first to leave.  
The other animals helped. It was almost as if they could smell that Stan was not taking things as well as he said to the people who asked.  
For almost two weeks at least one of them was glued to his side and even after they all let up a little, they still made sure to give as much animal affection to their human as they could.  
Stan eventual got over it, partly anyway.   
He did feel a bit of a twinge whenever someone brought up the cat in conversation, but he didn’t cry to himself at night or become sad for the rest of the day. He did occasionally leave a few wildflowers on the grave marker, or just stand there for a few moments and chat with his first cat.  
Things change, he accepted that. But that didn’t mean he had to leave it all in the dust. Freeloader, heck all his animals, would hold a place in his mind and heart even after they went where he couldn’t follow.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

He hadn’t expected to lose another animal so soon after Freeloader. It was a year since that day but it was still far too soon.  
It wasn’t even a natural death he lost Stormy to.  
The kid had claimed he didn’t even see Stormy.   
Stan had felt numb as he told the teenager to just move along and bundled Stormy’s limp body in his arms.  
He believed it when the kid said he didn’t see the dog. Stormy was a bit on the small side and the browns of his coat blended in far to well with the dirt of the Shacks parking lot.  
Stormy was buried next to Freeloader and his grave was marked with a stone.  
The cycle started again. The remaining animals stayed close to him and offered comfort, folks form town of course found out and told him they were sorry for his loss.  
This time the initial pain lasted longer then with Freeloader, but Stan tightened his jaw and moved on down the road.  
Stormy was in a better place and if he could come back as a ghost he would back up a storm if Stan grew to mopey for his liking.  
So Stan moved on, but he never forgot.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

The piece of land behind the Shack became Stan’s pet graveyard.  
Three and a half years after Stormy, Foxy was buried next to the two other graves.  
CC and the pups moped about for almost two weeks after her passing.  
The twins went two years after. Stan wasn’t too surprised at that really. The two cats had been thicker then thieves, it made sense that they would die the same way they did everything else.  
Stan buries them in the same grave and marks it with two stones.  
Now only CC, Two-Face, Tag-Along, Sandy, CC the Second or Junior, Rusty, Marble, and Shadow remained and they were all getting on in years. Stan felt sure CC would drop at any second, Sandy was having more and more trouble getting around every week and Shadow spent more time sleeping, only getting up for food.  
The pups and Two-Face were the only ones who still seemed relatively young.  
Despite that, they all stayed loyal and loving, following Stan around on tours and helping to entertain the younger tourists by day, curling up next to his chair or on his lap to watch afternoon TV, and at night they would take turns curling up on the bed with him.  
They were an odd family but Stan wouldn’t want it any other way and he treasured the time they all had for however much longer they had it.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Stan was honestly surprised when Deputy Bulbs brought in a box with five kitten and two puppies.  
Apparently, the animal shelter was over crowded and someone had dropped the little guys off at the front door. Since Stan seemed to have a kind of following of animals, they figured the Mystery Shack would be better then putting down their older animals to make room.  
So, the Shack was now housing seven new residents. The kittens, Bluebell, Coco, Piney, Bigfoot and Half-Pint, and the two pups, Clown and Pepper.  
They were accepted by the other instantly and became normality as the Mystery Shack newest generation of pets. 

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

The goat was an even bigger surprise.  
Up until then, Stan had just had dogs and cats. He had a silent agreement with the shelter that when it got too crowded they would send some of their animals to the Mystery Shack.  
So when the recently promoted Sherriff Bulbs walked in leading a baby goat it caused the forty six year old behind the cash registered to do a double take.  
Someone had dumped the goat off on the side of the road and the young kid had wandered around until finding his way to the animal shelter.  
They had sent the kid to the local farm, only to find the goat kept trying to get in the farm house and was not happy with being left in the barn.  
That and he didn’t seem to mix well with the other farm animals.  
The Mystery Pets however, welcomed the goat with the same friendly eagerness that seemed to carry through each generation.  
Gompers notched himself into the Mystery Shack routine. Since the goat was still too little for solid foods, Stan sat himself down with the kid twice a day and bottle fed the little rascal.  
Stan always griped and groaned, but anyone who knew him well enough would know that the addition to his routine didn’t bother him that much.  
Of course, the only ones who were that close to Stan were the animals that had free run of the Shack.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Stan hadn’t been too worried that the animals wouldn’t take well to the twins. They all got along with tourist kids and they warmed up to Soos when the kid started working for him and enjoyed lazing around with his new cashier Wendy so two twelve years old wouldn’t bother them.  
He was more worried about the kids liking the animals.  
He’d only met the little gremlins once and that was when they were not even a day old. Twelve years later, he got a call asking if he would take the kids in for the summer so mom and dad could have a little vacation time just to themselves.  
So, Stan was left with twins Dipper and Mabel Pines for the entire summer.  
And after he brought the two in, he was happy to see he had had nothing to worry over.  
Mabel took to the odd assortment of animals the second she met each one. Even Gompers didn’t faze her.  
Dipper was more wary, but warmed up to the creatures within a few days.  
The two also had no issue with the pet Graveyard in the backyard, Mabel would even leave little bouquets on the graves and decorate the stone markers.  
When in the Shack, the cats would pad after the twins or curl up next to them while they watched TV and when the duo went out the dogs would follow them when they ventured into town or the woods.   
It was a win, win in Stan’s mind. The kids had plenty of animals to play with and the dogs would protect the kids when they went to explore.  
It helped Stan feel more at ease about the kids running around in the woods.  
He now had three cats and five dogs on the property. Two of the dogs we descendants of CC and Foxy. Cookies’n’Cream the Fourth, a spiting image of his great, great, great grandfather, and Vixen, the only pup to emerge from the family line that had fur as red as her great, great grandmothers. Then there was Crash, a klutz of a mutt with black and white fur. Next was Candy, who Stan swore could devour a whole bag of pure sugar and not even feel queasy and last was Patchy, who had gotten himself some nasty looking scars prior to coming to the shack that fur refused to grow out on, so his fur was covered in little bald spot.  
The cats had another twin set in the ranks, gray tabby twins Louis and Louisa who proved very willing to be put in a suit that made them look like they were one cat with two heads. And the third was a tortoiseshell male named Sparky, little guy was a fighter from day one when Stan found him waterlogged in a cardboard box on the road side. The vet said the kit wouldn’t survive but Sparky proved her wrong and was now a handsome sleek tomcat.  
Stan smiled to himself as he watched his new found favorite guilty pleasure, The Duchess Approves, and stroked the molted colored tom in his lap.  
He would never tell a soul, but Stan truly loved where he was. So what if the majority of his family wasn’t even human? They still cared for him and her cared for all of them, humans and animals.  
That was more then enough for a proper family.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Stanford Pines, the real Stanford Pines, thought he couldn’t be any more shocked today.  
The fact Stanley had ignored his every warning and opened the portal, the fact that he had a great grand niece and nephew, the fact the FBI was crawling all over the house, that Stanley had turned his house into a mockery of his life’s work. It was all a lot to take in and he had thought nothing could top it.  
And then he learned that the house was filled with animals.  
The pig and the goat he’d just given a side ways look to, but when he saw three cats and five dogs eating breakfast on the front porch with the pig and the goat it had given him pause.  
He knew Stan had wanted a dog when they were kids but he never thought Stan would have so many or have cats as well.  
The little graveyard out back had also been a surprise. He hadn’t even known it was a graveyard until he asked Dipper why there were so many stones in the back yard and the boy filled him in on how Stan had been adopting various animals and buried them there when they passed away.  
It puzzled Ford. He honestly could not figure out why Stan would dedicate so much time and energy to these animals when he constantly griped about how they put a dent in his wallet.  
That is, until Stan came home with a kitten.  
Ford had been in the kitchen when Stan came in with the tiny ball of fluff cupped close to his chest.  
When Ford asked why Stan had such a small cat, Stan growled out that some dumb kids had thought it would be funny to throw rock at a family of cats and the kitten was the only one to make it.  
He handed the kitten to Ford and stormed off to find a bottle and formula, leaving a very confused researcher with a very tiny cat.  
Ford stared at the kitten for a good minute before noticing that his eyes weren’t even open yet.  
A part of him fumed at the thought that anyone would think of harming something so small and defenseless and he held the small animal closer to his chest.  
The small, bluish tabby curled into his sweater and mewled quietly.  
Warmth bloomed in Fords chest and the noise and a small smile started to form on his face. He hardly noticed Stan return with, not a bottle, but with Louisa.  
The she-cat lay down on the table and Stan told Ford to put the kitten next to her.  
The kit took to his stand in mother instantly and Stan sighed in relief.  
That was when Ford got to see a part of Stan he hadn’t seen since they were twelve.  
A soft and compassionate side that reveled itself as Stan stroked Louisa’s head and praised her for helping look after their newest Mystery Cat.  
Ford watched in silent awe as the she cat and tom kit brought out the warmer side of his brother, he almost didn’t hear Stan ask if he wanted to name the new kit.  
The question surprised Stanford, why would Stan ask him to name his kitten?  
Stan shrugged and said that he was running out of ideas for names, he had been using Cookies’n’Cream for four generations of dogs now.  
Stanford settled on calling the kitten Tesla and Stan had grinned at the name choice before calling Ford a complete nerd.  
Ford chuckled and helped Stan move Tesla and Louisa to the closet near Stan’s room, the official animal nursery of the house.  
As Tesla grew, he seemed to take a liking to Ford and Ford found he quite enjoyed the cats company.  
He still didn’t fully get why Stan took in so many animals but he was starting to get a pretty good idea.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

It was like they could sense that something wasn’t right.  
Ford looked at the group of dogs and cats and goat that stood on the porch, all silently staring up at him as if asking what was wrong with their human.  
Ford murmured a quite sorry as he walked pass the animals and into the house.  
A few followed him, while the rest remained outside.  
Stan questioned why there were so many animals here and the knife of guilt seem to twist itself further into Fords chest.  
These animals had been Stan’s consent company, something that kept that gentle side of his brother alive. Once upon a time he knew each by name and knew who would be where at what time of day and which was coming into the room by the sound of their paws on the floor.  
Now he didn’t even know they were his.  
Even Tesla, who was pretty much Fords cat, seemed to be saddened by Stan’s current state.  
Thank whatever deity in this dimension for Waddles and Mabel.  
The pig had set the ball rolling and Mabel kept it moving.  
Ford felt as giddy as a child on Christmas as Stan, slowly but steadily, regained his memories.  
By the end of the day, he was sat on the floor and being attack with wet kisses from his dogs and happy purrs from his cats.  
The sight was more then enough to make Ford laugh along with Stan.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Not even the Stan O’ War II was safe for the animal adoption frenzy.  
They had brought along Vixen and Tesla for their voyage. Vixen was the most well behaved and sure footed of the dogs and Tesla, who had grown into a fine mouser, was technically Ford’s only pet, so they became the best candidates to be crew members on the Stan O’ War. The rest of the animals had been left at the Shack in Soos and Wendy’s hands.  
By the time the Stan Twins came back to Gravity Falls, there were two more cats, a ginger tom named Apollo and a silver Maine Coon she cat that Stan insisted on calling Leopard, and a broader collie mix dubbed Creaser.  
The newcomers were welcomed by human and animal alike and the twins had been delighted to hear of the new arrivals when their bus finally showed up.  
The afternoon was spent exchanging stories of great sea monsters, ornery costumers and the woes of being thirteen.  
The family talked and laughed well into the night, with the Mystery Pets seated under the table listening to their humans.  
It was certainly an odd family that lived in the Mystery Shack, Two sets of twins one old and one new, a red haired lumberjack girl, a man who resembled a hairless gopher, a pig, a goat, six dogs, and six cats.  
But for them, it was normality and they wouldn’t want it any other way.

**Author's Note:**

> So, basically, I thought to myself 'What if Stan had a bunch of cats and dogs that kept him company while he was in Gravity Falls for those thirty years?'  
> Here is my first contribution to the AO3 site, hope ya'll enjoy.   
> Please leave a comment on how I did and what I could improve.  
> Have a lovely day :)


End file.
